Well, what do you know?

Criminals are learning that their intended victims may not be helpless after all, and their own lives depend on being aware of that, and willing to cut and run.  Or drop and wait for the cops. 

At least, that's the case in Castle Doctrine states...

Oh, wow.

I think the people compiling statistics on relative intelligence cross referenced with declared major in college need to run a new study.  Because really?  I've known teacher education and sociology majors smarter than these cops.  I cannot imagine anyone stupid enough that they can't tell the difference between a shrink-wrapped case of bottled water and a case of beer.

I am so glad the DA dropped the charges.  I hope to God that somebody bitch slaps the cops for scaring the shit out of a twenty-year-old co-ed for no fucking reason.  

If Zimmerman gets justice...

I'm so glad I'm in a small town, and a good ways away from racist minorities.  Because I do not want to have to defend my home from rioters.

For those of you who may need a bit of help with the heat...

A $20 air conditioner that's easy to assemble, and that works.  It may not cool an entire house, but it should do for bedrooms for better sleep.

Self-righteous people piss me off

My family, in particular. 

I love my mother, sister, and aunts.  I do.  What I don't like is their attitude that they're better than me because they go to a specific church.  The same church that I was abused in, and that my dad's siblings--who lied for him and covered for him, despite him abusing their kids, too--still go to. 

I've been told that I'm a bad Christian because I work outside the home.  I'm a bad Christian because I have friends that are gay.  I'm a bad parent because my children have been baptized, but Christ--whose example we are to follow--wasn't baptized until he was thirty. 

Yes, I work outside the home.  Thanks to feminism, I have to: it's almost impossible for a man to find work that earns a wage that can support a family, anymore.  I would rather not--but I do what I must to care for my family.  Unlike my mother, who dropped out of the workforce and permitted the government to take over the role of provider.  Unlike one of my aunts, who hasn't earned an income in almost thirty years, and whose husband is on a blind pension. 

Yes, I have friends that are gay.  I think I recall the bible directing us to love the sinner, even while we hate the sin.  No, I don't approve of the lifestyle--but their actions are between them and God.  I have no right to do anything but set an example.

Yes, I have had my children baptized.  I recall knowing the difference between right and wrong on an intellectual level--and often chose to do what was wrong--much earlier than Mom says is the age of accountability.  And if we're supposed to follow Christ's example, then they've messed up just as much: my mother admits to having been baptized at eight, I was eighteen, and my sister was nineteen.  None of us were thirty. 

And not one of them stops to think that Christ was baptized when he met his cousin John, who'd only started washing sins away a couple of years earlier, so there was no way he could have been baptized earlier.

God created us with the ability to think.  To think for ourselves.  As in the parable of the talents, I think those who refuse to think are sinning against their Creator, worse than my family thinks I do.  

I love my family, but they purely piss me off.  If they weren't being supported by my taxes, it might bother me less, but their attitude strikes me as biting the hand that feeds them. 

Oh...wonderful.

My poor little imp gave me another job to do tonight: throwing away all of the bath toys and cleaning the tub.  He learned, the hard way, that you never trust a fart when your tummy hurts.  Poor little guy.  Freaked him right out, and when I got in there, he was shivering outside of the tub, pointing, and asked me to pull the plug for him.  Big fat tears rolling down his face.  It took me a few minutes to convince him that it was an accident, and I wasn't mad at him, no matter how gross it was (and he was gagging).

I love my kids, but I'm very thankful that I have a very strong stomach.

Random ramblings

My little ones have been miserable with the sudden hot snap.  The pixie doesn't like to stay out for long, and since we're in town, I can't leave the imp outside while I come in with the pixie.  It makes for a very unhappy boy.  And, as soon as we can, we will be getting a place a ways outside of town, and will fence in a yard for him.

This week, though...this week is going to be really nice.  Low to mid eighties all week. 

We're looking into kid-tough tablets for the imp.  It's been almost a year since he killed the cheap tablet that we'd gotten as an experiment.  And, with a tablet, I think that learning websites might be easier for him to play with and use. 

The cats have been really squirrelly, the past few days.  I'm not sure if it's the weather change, or the living room rearrangement. 

The dog has been as unhappy as the boy has been, with the weather hot enough she couldn't play outside all day.  I'd take her out after her breakfast, and bring her in for the afternoon about our lunch time, because it was too hot for a little black dog to stay out without shade (none of our back yard has any).  It got hot enough last week that we had to put the window unit AC in the utility room/pantry window (the dog really liked that).  After we did that, it dried out back there, and all of the pets were happier.  The dog, in particular, was really cute: I went back to do something, and found her sprawled on her back, hind legs spread and front paws up next to her ears, head tipped back so far that she looked like she was smiling. 

I got my textbook done last week, and have been trying to get some story writing done.  It's not been easy--life just really seems to not like me, right now.

Gonna try something, here...

My ears are still giving me fits...except when I'm eating or drinking something hot, then they pop, and hurt less for a bit.  I'm gonna try some catnip tea (slightly queasy stomach) sweetened with honey whiskey, and see if that doesn't help. 

My ears giving me fits can definitely fuck off.  I've got housework to do, and tip sideways when I try to bend over to do it. 

FFOT: urgh.

Sudden onset ear pain can fuck off.  I can't focus on much.  Go ahead and tell off your week or whoever/whatever ruined one or more of your days--it's what these are for.

*snerk*

So, an idiot walks into a bank, with plans to rob it.  He gets into a teller line and pulls a weapon.  His mistake is that the guy at the teller line right next to him is a retired Marine, who soundly kicks his ass. 

Sounds like a joke, right?  Ask Edward Sotelo, who tried to rob the bank, and Eugene Storley, the man who stopped him. 

Sotelo, the would-be robber, has been charged with attempted armed robbery, possession of drug paraphernalia, and...get this...battery on an elderly person. 

I wonder what Storley thought of that last charge, since he was the "elderly person" referenced?

Guns kill people!

We shouldn't let anybody have one, because without guns, there would be no murder!

Guess what's gonna happen here.

A New York state court has ruled that Starbucks coffee jerks must share what's in the tip jar with their shift supervisors.  I can foresee one major unintended consequence: all service is going to get a little bit worse.  Great service will become good, good service will become bad service, and already crappy service is gonna get worse. 

Brilliant, just brilliant.  I hope the lawyers and judge hearing the suit like Starbucks, so that they get hit with what they cursed everyone else with.

Read an article, last night.

It basically made the argument that a college degree isn't an investment but an opportunity.  Said that everyone, especially those pushing college as the only method by which to haul yourself up out of poverty, were looking at it the wrong way--instead of being a full-on investment like bonds (which come with a disclaimer that past results don't predict future performance) , it was a chance to increase your own value by adding to your knowledge base.

I think the author, George Leef, is spot on.  I've seen students who came in ready and willing to work hard, greedily gathering information and knowledge to themselves--those were the successful students, and the ones I could see succeeding later.  I've also seen too many of the other type: the ones that skate through on the minimum, the ones that refuse to try, the ones that expect everything to be handed to them because they sat through their women's cultural studies degree.

Leef ends by saying (and illustrating) it's not the degree, it's the work you put into improving your own value by whatever means suit you best, whether that's a degree in a useful discipline or a set of professional certifications and foreign language fluencies that combine together to make you an attractive proposition to a non-traditional career. 

...and done. For now.

What we've been so busy with this afternoon has been backbreaking and exhausting...and didn't get finished before our friends made it over for dinner. 

We completely rearranged the living room.  The couch has been moved away from the wall and flipped to where it faces the wall it used to be along.  It now stretches the length of the middle of the living room.  There's a recliner next to Odysseus's computer, and my chair faces the couch.  We have a seven and a half foot long, three foot high, eighteen inch deep shelving unit (fucker weighs a ton--solid wood) where the couch used to be, and the television moved to the middle of that wall, instead of in the corner. 

Why did we do this?  Simple.  We needed classroom space.  The imp and the pixie are starting to really take things seriously where trying to learn to read is concerned (expected with the imp--he's four and a half, and hasn't ever had a day of his life where he wasn't read to, or seen Mom and Dad reading--but not so much with the pixie, since she's two and a half).  So we put the coffee table (30" wide by 50" long oval) on the opposite wall from the television, behind the couch.  And, with their folding stools, that should make a more than adequate surface for writing. 

But moving the shelves, the chairs, two three shelf bookcases, the couch, the tables--pretty much everything in the living room, now that I think about it--was exhausting work, made even more unpleasant by outside temperatures ensuring that inside temperatures were five degrees hotter than the already-high thermostat setting (standard daytime temps are set at 78 degrees). 

No, we're not done.  We've got all sorts of clutter that we'd had stacked neatly out of sight to sort through and get the hell out of the room.  (I will admit: much of it is my yarn and knitting projects). 

Tomorrow...we're going to be going up to visit my in-laws.  Should be back just after midday, so that we can get the pup brought in out of the heat before her shade completely disappears.  After that?  I'm gonna finish the job I started with the living room. 

Still busy.

The pixie is still sleeping, so there's not a whole lot that I can do without risking waking her up.  I have, however, managed some things. 

After she gets up...then things will be getting crazy again.

Productive day, yesterday.

I got laundry done and sorted, and the imp's clean clothes put away.  I didn't get the pixie's put away because it's a lot harder to do hers with both kids underfoot (especially since the imp is no longer allowed in the pixie's room at all). 

But...I got my textbook done and handed off to a blog friend awesome enough to be willing to proof it for me (Thanks, DaddyBear!).  And I got one story I'd been kinda stuck on finished, and another very short one written. 

Today is going to be a very busy one: we've got stuff on campus to get done, the rest of the laundry to get put away, shopping to do, and the living room to rearrange.  Oh, and a couple of friends will be coming over for dinner, since they're having some financial trouble with one of them out of work.

Wits' end

I am there.  My daughter will not stay in her bed.  Nor will she stop squalling about being told to get back in bed.  It is almost ten o' fucking clock. 

And I was planning to take a shower tonight. 

I am about ready to give the little twerp some Benedryl to make her go to sleep, even though her ears are actually not bothering her for once.

Sad, but not surprising.

A seventh-grade special-needs boy with the mental age of about six years old was raped by an eighth-grade boy in gym class at Barack Obama Global Preparation Academy in LA.  The victim's parents "argue that school officials should face criminal charges for criminal child endangerment charges." 

I'd go so far as to suggest that all school officials in every public school should--there are not enough adults to monitor as many students as are in your standard school.  I'm not talking student/teacher ratios, but child/adult ratios. 

Because of that, and the forcible disarmament of adults who would protect the children from school shootings, I also think that any parent that puts their children in public school is placing their child in harm's way.

There is no fucking way my kids are going to public school, unless one or the other (or both) want into JROTC.

Urk. Mornings.

I don't like the very early ones.  Like this morning.  I woke up at six thirty...and couldn't get back to sleep, no matter what I tried.  And  I tried.  Finally, I just got up, rather than toss and turn and wake Odysseus. 

I woke up my laptop, and checked email, Facebook, and blog comments, then pulled up the TV Guide website to plan the kids' TV watching.  And got depressed.

Why?  I saw an ad for  this. 

With so many good ideas in my head alone, they're reduced to that kind of dreck?

Um...no.

I am so glad I found a small, conservative-friendly, family practice doctor's office long before I had kids.  I would so hate to have to deal with a pediatrician.  Especially when I don't know when one is going to pressure my kids toward being gay, or towards a relationship with a pedophile, because normal is "heterosexist."

News flash, dumbasses: homosexuality is abnormal.  Less than 1% of the population self-identifies as homosexual.  A further 9% self-identifies as either trans-gendered, or bisexual.  That, right there, is the definition of abnormal.  It is not normal.  It is practiced by a very small percentage of the population. 

And most of the time, it's biological combined with environmental.  Sometimes that environmental is a nasty pollutant the kid was exposed to in utero, and sometimes it's a kid that's been sexually abused, either imprinting on the abuser, or going the complete other direction.

In either case, it is not normal.  And all of the braying that it is normal will not make it so, and will just prove to the world that y'all are a bunch of jackasses.

Bug, or feature?

Apparently, more and more people are admitting that the slowly-activating "Affordable" Care Act is driving up costs for consumers.  Everywhere, every time, but mostly on those whom it was supposed to serve: lower income, childless singles. 

Makes you wonder if that was an intended consequence by the ones who fancy themselves our betters to deliberately deny medical care to the rabble, or an unintended consequence that's surprising only those who are too stupid to add two plus two and come up with four instead of purple?

Falling down on the job.

It is a mother's job to protect her children.  I take my job seriously--one of the things I do is regularly review the list and photos of our local area's registered sex offenders.  It's not easy (we live very close to an intersection of state lines for four states), but it's worth it to make sure that no one my children have contact with is a predator. 

Any mother who doesn't do this is failing in her primary job...and could pay the ultimate price.  Like this woman did.

Do I feel sorry for her?  Hell yes.  But I also want to grab her by the hair and beat her head against the ground for failing her daughter so very, very badly.

(As an aside, I'm also horribly angry with the state--with every state--for releasing these monsters instead of putting them down like the sick animals they are.  Child sex predators cannot be rehabilitated, and will re-offend in 97+% of cases.  Save the children.  Kill them all.)

Criminal masterminds

40.  Never, ever pull a gun and try to rob a crowd in a concealed carry state.  Someone in the crowd will have a CCW, pull a gun, and shoot your stupid ass.

Mind you, I think standing in line to buy $180 shoes isn't such a bright idea, either.

My textbook

I have one more sample essay to write--around seven hundred or so words--and it will be finished.  It'll come skating in at just under 20,000 words--just about 65 pages, single spaced. 

It has everything I want for my students, a few worksheets...and no fancy glossy photos, or fluff. 

Printing it through CreateSpace would cost right around $4.15.  I wouldn't charge more than $5 for it, were I to go that route.

As it is, it's going to be posted for free download for my students, so they don't have to pay more than printing costs for it--something around 32 pages, printed on both sides of the paper.   So, with laser printers on campus at $.10 per printed page, call it about $3.20-$6.40, depending on how it's figured. 

The cheapest Comp I textbook that I can find costs around $45.  And it sucks for actually teaching from it.

That says some very bad things about the textbook agencies, and worse things about my colleagues that use these books, nationwide. 

DTFO!!!

I got an email from my department head, last week.  Seems one of my blockheads that could not comprehend that the due dates for the class she was taking were not the days that the course designer said they would be, despite weekly reminders.  That one, despite repeated whining emails with responses of "Due dates are Friday, not Sunday, and late work gets a 0" could not bring herself to turn stuff in on time.  I also told her--several times, through email, and through announcements--that several of the assignments weren't opening for me, so they were changed to not count.  And that the busy work for the last three weeks was changed to not count.

And she emails my boss, telling him that she failed because I ignored her homework.

No, bitch.  You failed because you didn't fucking pay attention  to my fucking instructions, messages, and/or emails telling you to turn shit in on Friday instead of Sunday.  And no, I didn't ignore her homework--she did busy work shit worksheets that I told everybody I couldn't grade, or told them not to do.

Just...drop the fuck out until you grow the fuck up.  It's no fucking surprise that my Comp II class was the third one you failed.

Something occurred to me...

Interesting fact about European royalty: everyone is related, in varying degrees, to everyone else.  It's pretty bad, even now, with all of the knowledge that's been gained about inbreeding and genetic diversity.  It was even worse in the eighteenth century.

It makes me wonder...just how closely are today's political dynasty families related in our country?   Because inbreeding would explain a lot, now that I think about it.

Ugh! Textbooks!

Anybody interested in being a beta reader?  I'm nearly finished with my Composition I textbook, and I'd like an outside eye looking it over for stupid errors from copying units from my online stuff and pasting it into the for the classroom edition.  And for stupid errors in which is under what kind of header (same types of info need to be under uniform header styles from chapter to chapter, and I'm too tired of it to see what I'm looking at). 

I should be done sometime this evening or tomorrow, and it needs to be posted in my enhanced course website by mid-July.  (Apparently, our copy budget doesn't extend to fifty copies of a 60 page book...but does extend to fifty copies of sixty different worksheets, packets, and other handouts.  So, I have to post it in a course website.)

Help?

Sometimes...

Sometimes, it's not the story that's the best part (though, ten foot tall sheep-eating South American plant?  Awesome!).  It's the comments:

Phil112
June 21, 2013 at 9:30 am

Even plants know vegetarians are wrong.

Heh.  Heh-heh.  Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!

Damn.

Ms. Staudte,

I don't care if you hated your husband, thought your son a pest, and thought your daughter a worthless bum--you don't bring out the antifreeze. 

Hate your husband?  Divorce him, don't kill him.  Because a first degree murder conviction in my state is far more expensive than a divorce.

Think your son is a pest?  Kick him out and tell him he's not welcome in your house.  Again, first degree murder...

Think your daughter is a bum?  Tell her she has one month to get a job, any job, and start paying off her student debts, or get the fuck out of your house.

And, even more than the above, you don't get your youngest daughter in on your horrible actions.  You sicken me.  It makes me sad that your mother wasn't able to abort you.

Love and kisses,

A wife and mother to a son and daughter

P.S. I hope you and your daughter both get the death penalty.  You are far too nasty of a piece of work--both of you are--to be permitted to walk the world.

Criminal masterminds

39.  Never, ever take your eyes off of the homeowner while you threaten his wife.  He'll pull a gun out of the nightstand and shoot your stupid ass.

The second biggest problem in education is parents in denial.

When we have a Lord of the Flies-type environment for our children to grow up in, is it any wonder that the coach's kids duct-tape the principal's kid and ass-rape him with a pencil? 

And, is it any wonder in the current parenting atmosphere that the coach refused to believe his kids did anything wrong?

And is it any wonder that, when it came out, the small town ostracized the victim, because the bullies/rapists were jocks, and coach's kids?

In a perfect world, those kids would have had enough respect for the other one that they wouldn't have hurt him.  Or, barring that, would have had their dad beat their asses until they couldn't sit down comfortably, either.  And the town would have banded together to ostracize the attackers, not the victim.

Since it's not a perfect world...is it any wonder that homeschooling is a growing trend?

Now, there's something to tell the grandkids...

"I'm not lying, kids--I pulled this person over for a ticket, and had just handed them the paperwork to sign, when this monkey jumped out of the back seat, and bit me."

I will have to admit, I laughed.  And laughed.  And kinda felt sorry for the cop.  I mean, it's not every day that a monkey comes out of nowhere to take a chunk out of you.

Something is rotten in Denmark

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war...  --Amendment V, United States Constitution

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, but an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.  --Amendment VI, United States Constitution

In other words, anyone charged, whether on a local level by local law enforcement is entitled to a trial by jury, a trial that is both speedy and public--not held in secret--in the district where whatever crime the accused is being charged with was committed.  

Federal prosecutors have filed a sealed criminal complaint against Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor... Washington Post

There's the first problem.  Snowden is not in active service, neither in the military, nor the militia.  He's an independent contractor--thus, he is entitled to a grand jury trial.  A public one, with all charges publicly available.  Not sealed.   By pursuing a sealed criminal complaint, Snowden's Constitutionally guaranteed rights are being violated by the government that is required by law to uphold the Constitution.

Big shock, right?

The complaint was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, a jurisdiction where Snowden’s former employer, Booz Allen Hamilton, is headquartered and a district with a long track record of prosecuting cases with national security implications....Snowden flew to Hong Kong last month after leaving his job at an NSA facility in Hawaii... Ibid.

...And here's violation number two.  The "crime" of shining a spotlight on the government's ass-raping of the Constitution with a sandpaper condom and no lube happened in Hawaii.  Not Virginia.

Again, big shock.  It's not like the federal government has the collective reading comprehension of a two year old.  If they did, they'd realize that their jobs are clearly defined and firmly limited in the Constitution, and that the rights of the people enumerated in the Bill of Rights are not rights granted by government, but by God.  If they had the reading comprehension of a retarded lemur, they'd realize that the Bill of Rights is there to inform the people of what the government is supposed to be legally restricted from doing to them.

Then again, I don't know more than a couple dozen people who have read the Constitution in its entirety.  And none of them is a government official.

Random ramblings

We really need to find a house out in the country where we can fence some yard in.  My poor little imp is desperate to go outside and play.  And neither Odysseus nor I have felt like sitting outside, recently.  I've been dealing with on and off headaches, and Odysseus is horribly allergic to catalpas, which have only just today finished blooming. 

He's also been trying really hard to learn how to write his letters and numbers.  We got him this, and something like it from somewhere else that has instructions and trace-overs for letters and shapes, also with numbers and basic addition.

The pixie really wants to try.  I'm figuring that, after I've finished my coffee, I'll probably strip both kids to the waist, give them each a marker, and a dry erase board book to work with. 

We got the dog brushed, bathed, brushed again, then her hair cut to half an inch long.  It's incomplete, far from even, and it took both Odysseus (to hold the dog down and still) and me (wielding the clippers) to get that much done.

The cats are being...cats.  They sleep a lot, and even at a year  old, still play a lot.  Frantically.  There are times when they're chasing each other up and down the hall that you'd sweat they were Maine Coon cat sized, rather than part-Siamese domestic shorthair size (10 pounds for Shadow, 11 or 12 for Cricket.) 

Mmmm...cookies.

Remember how I wrote the other day that I couldn't find my measuring spoons since the remodel?  Well, not too long after I got the kids to bed...I found them.  But I've been too worn out to think about making cookies.

I got it done this evening.  Three and a half dozen chocolate peanut butter chip cookies--two dozen done, the rest still in the oven.

My house smells amazing.

I figured that was a proper reward for washing the dog, then giving her her first hair cut.  Lord, was that ever a fight!  And we got enough fur off of her that we could make another dog.

And what signal would that be?

That the United States is weak and ripe for an attack? 

That's the signal that the idea of a woman in the Oval Office who isn't a secretary sends to me.  No matter who it is.  Because women can't make up their damn minds.

Don't believe me?  How many women have been attacked because they couldn't make up their damn minds over whether or not they were in an iffy situation?

If it's not an inability to make up their minds, it's making bad decisions.  Look at how many women claim that they're date raped.  Even if two-thirds of them were fully consenting at the time, they obviously realized it was a bad decision after the fact.

Then again, judging by our abusive relationships with nations run by enemy ideologies, we've been a nation run by women for a very long time.

FFOT: brainless idiots

Not just any brainless idiots.  Brainless idiots who do things they're afraid of to prove a point, and try to take rights away from the rest of us.

Like Heidi Yewman.  From her essay on Ms Magazine blog:

What’s got me jittery this morning is the 9mm Glock that’s holstered on my hip. Me, lead gun policy protester at the 2010 Starbuck’s shareholder meeting. Me, a board member of the Brady Campaign. Me, the author of a book about the impact of gun violence, Beyond the Bullet.

Okay.  If you're so shit scared of a fucking tool that can't do anything evil without an evil mind wielding it, why the fuck did you buy it?  And what are you going to do with it?  There is absofuckinglutely no fucking reason you have to have a gun.  Most criminals in concealed carry states are not going to attack you for fear that you might be carrying...because, chances are, there are those who will be, and the criminal can't tell the difference.

Yes, I bought a handgun and will carry it everywhere I go over the next 30 days. I have four rules: Carry it with me at all times, follow the laws of my state, only do what is minimally required for permits, licensing, purchasing and carrying, and finally be prepared to use it for protecting myself at home or in public.

Why? Following the Newtown massacre in December, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre, told the country, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”  I wondered what would it be like to be that good guy with a gun? What would it be like to get that gun, live with that gun, be out and about with that gun. Finally, what happens when you don’t want that gun any more?

 Oh.  You're a fucking mouth-breathing, hysterical female, engaging in histronics to prove a point that does not exist.  You, you fucking retarded twatwaffle-eating twunt, are the  perfect embodiment of a liberal talking point. 

Let me answer your questions: first, the Newton massacre happened because you and other idiots like you who are shit-scared of any fucking thing you are incapable of understanding, and have no desire to try to change that, forcibly disarm any who would protect the innocent from fucking nuts like Lanza.  Second, it feels damn good to be the good guy with the gun--if you have anything even remotely similar to a logical mind, you'd fucking realize that a gun plus a bit of education and training with it, grants a warm feeling of security.  Getting a gun begets a feeling of giddy glee because Yay!  New Gun!  Living with the gun is like living with a purse full of tools like a set of car keys (far, far more dangerous, you stupid shit-eating leftist cunt), a wallet with ID and cash and/or credit cards, and maybe a small flashlight.  What happens when you want to get rid of that gun is you take it to a licensed dealer, sell it, and walk out with about half of what you spent buying it.  He (or she) will then sell your gun to someone else who has to fill out a background check before they can buy it.

Getting the permit to carry a concealed weapon was simple. I filled out a form, had my fingerprints taken for a background check and paid $56.50. No training required. It took far longer to get my dog a license.

That is not the way it is everywhere.  I'm pretty sure you got a Utah license--which may or may not be legal in your state.  

I started my 30-day gun trial with a little window-shopping. I visited a gun show and two gun dealers. I ended up buying a Glock 9mm handgun from Tony, a gun dealer four miles from my house. I settled on this model because it was a smallish gun and because Tony recommended it for my stated purposes of protecting myself and my home.

It was obvious from the way I handled the gun that I knew nothing about firearms. Tony sold it to me anyway. The whole thing took 7 minutes. As a gratified consumer, I thought, “Well, that was easy.” Then the terrifying reality hit me, “Holy hell, that was EASY.”  Too easy. I still knew nothing about firearms.

Again, you are not the typical firearms buyer.  You are a hysterical female throwing a temper tantrum and trying to prove a point of how fucking stupid you actually are.

A real firearms buyer would be starting with a safety class, provided by either local law enforcement or the NRA.  Those classes start with the four rules of gun safety.  And also teach how to safely handle a gun without intending to shoot it (releasing the magazine and clearing it), then how to safely shoot it.

You, you fucking stupid cunt, are a complete and utter fucking moron trying to prove a point that all gunowners are irresponsible because you are, and you are now a gun owner.

Tony told me a Glock doesn’t have an external safety feature, so when I got home and opened the box and saw the magazine in the gun I freaked. I was too scared to try and eject it as thoughts flooded my mind of me accidentally shooting the gun and a bullet hitting my son in the house or rupturing the gas tank of my car, followed by an earth-shaking explosion. This was the first time my hands shook from the adrenaline surge and the first time I questioned the wisdom of this 30-day experiment.

Fucking stupid bitch.  New guns aren't shipped loaded.  Stupid mouthbreathing cunt.  Fuck off.

Oh, and this Tony person can fuck right off for being willing to sell your stupid ass a gun, and for selling you a Glock for your first gun.  You, Heidi, need a cute little pink .38 revolver with an impossible double action trigger.  Because you, Heidi, are the fucking reason gun store owners stereotype those of us who actually know what they're doing.

I needed help. I drove to where a police officer had pulled over another driver. Now, writing this, I realize that rolling up on an on-duty cop with a handgun in tow might not have been fully thought through.

Ha.  Y'think?  Too bad he didn't shoot your stupid fucking ass.  Your children would be far better off growing up without your idiocy infecting them.

I told him I just bought a gun, had no clue how to use it. I asked him to make sure there were no bullets in the magazine or chamber. He took the magazine out and cleared the chamber. He assured me it was empty and showed me how to look. Then he told me how great the gun was and how he had one just like it.

The cop thought I was an idiot and suggested I take a class. But up to that point I’d done nothing wrong, nothing illegal.

No, it's not illegal to be a stupid fucking cunt.  No, it's not illegal to buy a tool you have no idea how to use.  It is fucking stupid, and you are a fucking idiot.  Any other inexperienced gun owner would take a class.  And most concealed carry classes include a briefing on how to safely handle a gun.  It's your fault you chose one that didn't.  

So here I sit at Starbucks, and the irony couldn’t be thicker. On March 12, 2010, I was surrounded by big hairy men with guns on their hips, yelling at me as I led a protest against Starbuck’s gun policy. Today, I’m surrounded by five-year-old boys sitting with their moms at the next table. Now I’m the one with a gun on her hip. The gun makes me more fearful than I could have imagined.

That's because you are a fucking hysterical female.  And you can fuck off for making the rest of us look bad.  You are the reason I hate other women.

In some way, I feel a certain vindication. I was right to protest Starbucks policy. Today, they have a woman with absolutely no firearms training and a Glock on her hip sitting within arm’s reach of small children, her hands shaking and adrenaline surging.

No, you weren't vindicated.  You're a fucking idiot.  And you can fuck off, with your loaded gun that you don't know how to safely handle, and are too closed-minded, and too irresponsible to learn.

I am a responsible gun owner.  I've taken classes.  I've never shot anybody, never been tempted, and never had an accident with a gun--because I obey the four rules.  Which Heidi has obviously never heard of.  

So...

Does anybody that reads my blog have anything to say about Hooked on Phonics*?  My son is desperate to learn to read, and he does a lot better halfway teaching himself.

Case in point: I don't think his first step was at eighteen months.  I think it was a lot earlier...just hiding in his bedroom with the door shut while he learned.  He hid to learn to ride his tricycle, too.  He's tried to teach himself to read with just books, but has finally admitted that that wasn't working. 

I could probably teach him the same stuff without the workbooks and things, but I think he'd be happier working as independently as he can.

*Besides the usual juvenile jokes, that is.  I think I've heard--and laughed at--all of those.

Some people are alive...

...only because abortion at 57 trimesters is illegal.  It really shouldn't be in this case.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about that twunt in an FFOT post.  He'd tricked his girlfriend into taking an abortion pill by telling her that the pills he gave her were Amoxicillin that his dad (a fertility doctor who'd seen her) wanted her to take for a bacterial infection.

Turns out, he's an even bigger douche nozzle: the girl he got pregnant was the girl he was cheating on his girlfriend with.  And he didn't want the baby to come out as proof of the affair.

Uh-huh.  Good job, fuckwit.  Now, the whole world knows what a fucking worthless dirtbag you are.

Please don't feed, poke, harass, or take pictures of the animals.

When they get agitated, they get aggressive. 

I think it's time to thin the pack a little. 

Not something that would inspire me to hand over my money.

I saw this advertisement on Facebook, a few moments ago.  I had to blog it, here, because it sparked something.

Disgust.

Walden University · Suggested Post*

Did you know that Walden is the only fully-online institution to offer an online Master of Social Work degree?

If you are interested in entering this rewarding field, we invite you to explore our program! http://bit.ly/WaldenSocialWork

And how is this something to be bragged upon? A Masters in Social Work is less useless than a Masters in Teacher Education...but only just barely. It just barely has more to it than the empty pedagogy and theory taught in a MED. 

A MS in Social Work is a degree for those who see the leeches in society, and swallow the lie that they're victims.  It's for those who buy the lie that Medicaid will pay a higher percentage of the price charged if you get this degree, without looking into the difference between what a counseling center charges for the services of a licensed psychologist with a MA in psychology, and a MS in Social Work. 

It's a lie that my cousin was told, and didn't see the truth behind until it was too late.  No, these people aren't victims--except of their own choices and stupidity.  These people are con artists and fraud enablers.

Yeah, the counseling center she works for gets more of a percentage of their asking price paid for her services, but their asking price is $20/hour less for her than it is for a psychologist with a degree in the correct field, and she gets a smaller percentage of what the counseling center gets than the psychologist does.  

The only upside is that the government is rapidly forgiving the massive student debt she racked up in getting the worthless piece of paper that declares her a social worker that has a bit of training in assessing problems and handing out a little counseling, but not a full psychologist.

A degree in social work is a waste of time, blood, sweat, and tears, and a waste of money.

*links removed by blog author.

Criminal masterminds...

36.  Never, ever try threatening an intended victim's family.  The victim will turn out to be very much not a victim, pull a gun, and shoot your stupid ass. 

37.  Never, ever try taking a man's wife hostage in a home invasion robbery.  When you put the gun to her head, she will scream, scare you into dropping your gun, and her husband will pick your gun up and put a bullet in your worthless,* stupid ass.

38.  Never, ever break into a house with a smaller house on the back of the property.  There's a good possibility that a family member (say, a daughter of the homeowner) could be living there, and be prompted to investigate the open door at 11:30 pm.  And when you grab her and threaten her, she'd scream, her dad would show up with a gun, and shoot your stupid ass.

I'm kinda seeing a trend, here.  Looks like working at McDonald's is better for your health, even if it is less lucrative. 

*The corpse in this case was actually the victim's husband's cousin.

Criminal masterminds...continued.

35.  Never, ever threaten a woman's children, when all you have is a knife.  She will knock your stupid ass around, make you get out of her moving vehicle, then run your stupid ass over with the family minivan. 

Let's see if the other prisoners wherever he ends up sympathize...or whether they simply don't take him seriously, and make him everyone's bitch.

Examples of bad parents.

Jessee Daniels has been working on renovating his father-in-law's home for a while.  He and his wife live next door. 

Recently, he and his wife chased a pack of wild dogs kids on four wheelers, four of them, off their property.  And the kids, in return, broke into the house under renovation, and did $40,000 worth of damage to the property (pictures of damages at the link). 

The kids were eight and ten years old. 

They're claiming that Daniels grabbed at least one of them by the throat, and threatened them with a hammer. 

Looking at the facts of the case, I'm thinking the little shits angels are lying exaggerating just a tad.  After all, it's clear that they've probably been coddled all their lives, and never seen an adult angry at them.

What I want to know is why this was permitted to happen?  Where was the parental supervision when they were riding the four wheelers?  Those things are dangerous, and kids that age have no concept of private property lines.  Apparently, those parents don't care much about what happens to their sprogs.

Next...why were the kids permitted to roam without the parents having any damn clue where they were and what they were doing?  This is not the same world that we grew up in, much less that of our parents.  Our neighbors don't give a shit about our kids, and won't look out for them.  With the inevitable result of the war on some drugs coupled with uncontrolled illegal immigration, the streets are a much more dangerous place than they were even fifteen years ago. 

The parents need to be arrested and charged with neglect and child endangerment, then fined $40,000 per parent per child involved.  Their children need to be removed and placed into either a foster home or their grandparents' care, and the parents jailed. 

And Daniels needs to be awarded the full amount--at least $160,000, if not more, assuming that there were two "parents" in the homes--rather than prosecuted for protecting his father-in-law's property.

Sometimes, the feds get it right.

Like they did in this case.  Bravo, guys.  Bravo.  Most excellent work in saving that little girl before the douche bag in question managed to decide what to do with her.

Now, to the judge that sentenced the sixteen year old boy posting pictures of the eleven year old girl he'd kidnapped, asking advice on how best to rape her but not get caught:

What the fuck!  Forty-eight months in a juvenile facility for that?  What the fucking fuck?  This is not a child's prank, idiot.  That "boy" needed to be tried and sentenced as an adult, with attention paid to mandatory minimum sentencing laws...then placed in the general population, with his crime broadcast over the PA system before he arrived!

Long day.

We took the kids up to my mother's, today.  I made souvlaki for them, then Odysseus and I left the kids with my mother and sister  to go play parental hookey scout out future educational opportunities.  I vaguely remembered going to this town I saw that was twenty five or so miles in the opposite direction from the way we'd initially planned on going on a fourth or fifth grade history field trip. 

It was pretty much as I remembered.  In a couple of years, when I'm teaching the basic outlines of the Civil War, I'm going to have to take my kids up there for the tours.

Of course, knowing us, when we spotted a small, family owned used book store, we simply couldn't resist. 

We visited my family for a little while after we got back, then loaded the kids up and headed home.  I couldn't find my measuring spoons--haven't been able to since the kitchen remodel mess started, actually--so we went to Wal-Mart for those, new shoes for the imp (since he's worn his current pair out), and a quick buzz through Sporting Goods. 

Huh.  Nothin'.  Big shock.  The town I was born and raised in (and that my mother still lives in) had .40 cal ammo in, but no other handgun.  Ours?  Nada. 

Got home, got the kids settled down and our take-and-bake pizza in the oven, and the pixie demanded a bath.  Couldn't stand that her toes were dirty.  Got her in, then out, and pretty much as soon as she got turned loose and zipped into the living room, the imp tried to brain her with his bead toy (something like this, but not so complex). 

He got spanked, the toy removed from his possession for the week, and sent to his room for the evening.  Came out for his bath, but went right back when he was done. 

I, of course, wound up eating too much pizza.  Even with the pixie helping me by eating all of one stuffed crust, and a good portion of a different piece. 

We're going to finish out our day with an episode of Game of Thrones.  If you haven't seen it, and you're over eighteen, you should.  It's awesome.  Violent, openly sexual, highly political, and completely epic.  We're working on the second season.

The special hell awaits...

I much prefer it when douchenozzles choose early mornings to mow their lawns, rather than the EXACT FUCKING TIME I'm trying to get my kids to go the fuck to sleep.  Especially when the douchenozzles in question are mowing the yard right the fuck outside my kids' bedroom windows. 

Who the fuck starts mowing their yard at eight in the fucking evening, anyway?

Criminal masterminds

34.  Never, ever break into any house where the residents of the neighborhood have created interesting variations on the old concept of a neighborhood watch.  Chances are, they will not call the police until after they've shot your stupid ass.

Isn't that kinda like accidentally stepping on a cockroach?

I mean, really--I don't like Bieber.  Detest him, in fact.  However.  I dislike paparazzi even more. 

Good on Bieber for clobbering one that didn't get out of the way of the car when he was trying to go somewhere.  Maybe the others might learn something...

...if they weren't so fucking stupid.

Dayum.

If there was ever a case for involuntary commitment to a looney bin, this bint is it. 

In an interview with police officers, Murphy said that she thought the baby was trying to kill her, so she in turn threw the baby down and tried to kill her. The suspect subsequently went on a bizarre rant saying that "she was having her first exorcism" and threw her child on the ground because she thought the baby was "traveling to another dimension and was trying to save her."

According to police, after being taken to a hospital for evaluation, Murphy bizarrely claimed that she was being raped and that she was in a house of mirrors with Hitler. 

I mean, I had times where my two nursed constantly for a couple of hours at a time where I was half convinced they were trying to suck the life out of me, but that's ridiculous. 

Grr...

Our internet is messed up--moving about the speed of dial-up, freezing, and just refusing to load some of the pages I've wanted to read.  While it may be good for my blood pressure in one way (not seeing more of what's being done to my country), it's very frustrating.

Not enough data.

A girl and her father are pissed off at a TSA agent who called her out for being indecently dressed.  Now, I've seen outfits that fifteen year olds typically wear that have me making snide comments about pole dancers in training, but I've also seen outfits that aren't.  I'd need to see a picture of the girl and what she was wearing to be able to say whether I agree with a TSA agent* or whether said TSA agent was Muslim in his sensibilities toward skin.

*I hate to agree with a TSA agent, but if the little girl was dressed like a whore, then he was right about her needing to cover herself up.

Not sure what to think.

I don't feel real sorry for this guy.  He's been arrested for selling drugs, and one of the women he's slept with claims him as her babydaddy.  The judge on his case has ordered him to provide a DNA swab for a paternity test, and here's where it gets sticky: he's refused.  And so, the judge has ordered that he has to remain available to give one at all times during his incarceration until he complies.  That involves keeping him cuffed and in a shared holding cell under the courthouse for ten hours a day, every day.  He's whining that he's got sores and cuts from being cuffed for so long, and complaining that being crammed in a 12'x16' cell with five or six others and no sunshine is cruel and unusual punishment. 

On the one hand...the guy's obviously a creep, and is going to prison anyway.  I won't speak about how wrong the reasons are* but he knew that his actions were illegal, and chose to do them anyway.  Apparently, he's done other illegal things, and is concerned that his DNA will be added to a database, and used to convict him of his other crimes.

And that leads us to the other issue: the fourth and fifth amendments.  You know, the ones where you're supposed to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure in your person, home, and papers, and supposed to have the right not to incriminate yourself?  The ones that have been battered by the NSA et. al.?

He's got the right to refuse.  I suppose the judge has the right to hand down the orders that he's been giving that have made the guy so horribly uncomfortable, or the guy's lawyer would be raising holy hell and pointing fingers.

I see both sides of the issue.  If the guy doesn't want to provide DNA, maybe he ought to just acknowledge the kid his, whether it is or not. 

*The War on Drugs is just this generation's attempt at Prohibition...with the exact same results in the rise of organized crime.  Unfortunately, this time, Congress decided to shit on the Constitution with regards to due process and search and seizure, which means that it's not going to be repealed any time soon, since it's profitable this time.

So what?

I just saw an assessment that the teen unemployment rate is nearly a quarter of the teen population that wants to work in the first place.

So what?

I understand that a summer job is supposed to teach responsibility, accountability, and beginning budgeting.

However. 

I just can't get too worked up over teenagers unable to find jobs.  I don't see many teens responsible for themselves, much less for household income.  I don't see many teens willing to do the things I remember as being teenage summer jobs (dragging a lawnmower and weed eater around a neighborhood; babysitting; pet sitting; or farm chores like feeding the animals, helping with milking, helping with hay baling, or things like that).  Delivering pizzas is now reserved for those over eighteen that own their own car and have their own--not their parents'--insurance.  The work is heavy, low-paying, not "fun," and their hands are so busy that they can't play with their phones. 

Personally, I see about half a dozen teenagers on a regular basis.  They either live next door, or spend so much time there that they might as well. 

I would not hire any of them based on the behavior I see.  I wouldn't trust them to take care of my dog, much less my child.  I wouldn't trust them to stop and toss a toy out of the way of a lawnmower.  They're flighty, stupid, and completely unwilling to deal with the consequences of their actions. 

When my son hits about twelve, I'm going to provide him with a decent push mower, a gas-powered weed eater, a gallon can for gas, one for the gas/oil mix needed for the weed eater, and a wagon.  Then, I'm going to teach him how to build a client base, and how to figure gross and net income.

When my daughter hits twelve, given her proclivities, I'll start teaching her how to babysit.  And I'll help her find a daycare that could use help when she hits about sixteen. 

I'll probably teach her how to knit about the same time, and help her figure out what she can make and sell.  And I'll teach her the same small business things I teach the imp.

My kids won't ever complain that they can't find work. 

How in the world...

Okay, if a person has child pornography on their computer, and has been actively looking at it for years, in what twisted world can they possibly be considered "not a danger to children," and permitted to work around them?

Oh.  The Leftopia of Great Britain.

At least they fired him for a while.  Thanks to the various teachers' unions here in the United States, such "teachers" not only can't be fired, but are left sitting in a lounge somewhere in their district drawing full pay--if they're teachers in New York.  It's not much better in most other districts. 

Yeah...so not putting my kids in public school.

Wow. Intrusive.

Venezuela is considering banning the sale of bottles and formula in an effort to give families no choice but to breastfeed their babies.

Full disclosure: I breastfed both of my children.  The imp nursed until he was eighteen months, and I'm working on finishing weaning the pixie.  Both kids are very rarely sick, are towards the top percentiles in height (but not in weight), and both kids are very secure and happy.  Neither child had formula (except for once in the hospital when the imp's nurse didn't bother to check the freezer before fixing his syringe full of food to go through the feeding tube through his nose--and happened to trigger his awful acid reflux).  I believe breastfeeding is the best possible way to take care of a child.

That said...I do not see exactly how it's the government's--any government's--business how a mother takes care of her baby.  I don't understand how it's in a baby's best interests for the government to require a doctor's note for Mama to be permitted to buy bottles and formula.  How long will that take for a mother whose milk doesn't come in properly (rare, but they exist)?  How long will a baby have to go hungry?

This is nothing more than government overreach.

Gonna have to get the imp a clock for his room.

And I'm going to have to teach him when is an acceptable time to get up...and which isn't.  Because he keeps trying to get up between six and six thirty, and seven is the earliest I'll permit. 

Some people...

...should not have children or own pets. 

I've found a series on Animal Planet called My Cat From Hell. And not one of the cats I've seen has been a bad cat.  I've seen really stupid, bad owners, but no bad cats. 

This episode...dear God.  This wimpy twit with too much eyeliner and two Chihuahuas was terrified that her daughter's cat was going to kill and eat her dogs.  Dogs that she kept in a crib, in diapers and dresses, and wouldn't put down to be dogs.

Some people shouldn't be trusted with more than a Barbie doll.

A recommendation

Go watch Blackadder.  Don't bother with the first season; start with the second. 

Lines like these abound.

Water, water, everywhere...

We had a thunderstorm start about three o'clock this afternoon.  The dog decided she needed to go half an hour after that. 

The rain was coming down so hard that I couldn't see the house two houses down and across the street.  We had a river coming down the street, and tributaries running down my driveway and front walk.  There was about two inches of water standing in the yard.  The dog was instantly as soaked as she is when I bathe her within a minute. 

And...she decided she couldn't go pee in those conditions. 

Poor pup. 

She still hasn't been willing to go out.  Then again, while it's not still raining as hard and fast as it was, it is still raining.

Bad idea.

I will be the first to admit to being a misogynist.  I do not like women, and I am one.  Since I am one, I can categorically state that, with few exceptions, they're flighty, ignorant, back-stabbing, indecisive twits.  We do not need another one in the White House, even though Hillary Clinton would have made a far better POTUS than the sort-of woman we've got there now, in the form of King Putt*.

*I think his wife has the twig and berries in that relationship.

Random ramblings

We got the imp returned to us after a visit with Grandma and Grandpa yesterday.  He's been pretty good since--just loud.

Which is a problem for me, last night and today.  It's time for another migraine, and it arrived right on time.  You know, I should have learned to expect them by now, but...




I had the tape measure out yesterday, checking on exactly how big the table currently in the kitchen is.  While I was at it, the pixie wandered into the kitchen, and I got the brainstorm to measure her height.  Not an accurate measure, by any means, but she's 34" tall.  The imp is 44.5" tall.  Height predictors put the pixie solidly in average height--an achievement, since I'm so damn short.  The imp looks to be taller than his daddy by age eighteen.

We used some flea stuff on the dog on Tuesday.  By Thursday, she had gone from a near-solid, crawling mass of fleas to one dying one visible on her belly.  I am impressed. 

We've also treated one of the cats.  We'll catch the other one and treat her today.  And, once I find the dog shampoo, I'll bathe the dog so she can get shorn.

Writing has been...iffy.  I'm going to have to do better than this.  I've been trying to get stuff back together in the kitchen, as best I can with trying to referee the kids, and between their naps and bedtimes (the pixie is an annoyingly light sleeper), but that's not an excuse.

I will stop spamming y'all pushing my books, now.  Even with the mention last week, I only sold one more copy of The Last Pendragon.  It was a good run, though--I have never sold so many books in a year of being a published writer as I did last month.  Thanks again to everyone who bought a copy.

FFOT bonus

Getting hit with a migraine can fuck right the fuck off, with knobs of moldy cheese. 

30% of our fellow countrymen are completely stupid.

Why?  According to this Rasmusen poll, 57% believe the government will be using the unconstitutionally gathered data to punish those not of the same political beliefs as the majority party, 14% aren't sure what's going to happen, and a full 30% are convinced that the government would never do something that horrible!!!

I don't "fear" that it will happen.  I assume it will, and plan accordingly.

And I don't believe any party is any better than any of the others.  Power corrupts.  And knowledge is power.

Note to congressional leadership:

The Republicans don't want to be Democrats by another name.  That's why you're seeing revolt amongst your own party, Mr. Boner.  Get that through your heads, and actually start listening to your fucking bosses, namely, we, the people. 

Rifles under recall...

Thompson/Center is recalling three of their rifles: Icon, Venture, and Dimension rifles have a major manufacturing fault which may interfere with the proper engagement of the safety.  And enough people have a complete inability to keep their booger hook off the bang switch that this is a major problem.

I don't have any of the above, but I thought I'd pass the word along. 

(First seen on DaddyBear's Den.)

I'm shocked!

I'm completely shocked that the mouth-breathing morons that pushed a law that two-thirds of the nation's citizens didn't want didn't foresee this consequence.  It seems, to me at least, an obvious solution to the massive financial hit that employers were expected to take under the Affordable Care Act: cut as many full-time employees as possible back to part-time, and hire temporary help to take up the slack.  I still don't understand why it's being made such a big deal of.

Honestly, if I were running a business, I'd be making sure I didn't hire anyone who voted for King Putt in either election.  Let them feel the consequences of their own stupidity.

FFOT: a list

My week was going pretty good...and then I saw the news on Thursday.  Several parts purely pissed me off. 

First up: Democratic Representative Bobby Rush can fuck right off with a giant rainbow horse dick for suggesting we need to stop calling illegal aliens "illegal" because that word is "extremely offensive."  Sure, you terroristic Black Panther twunt.  I'll stop calling them "illegal."  I'll start calling them wetbacks.  And rifle targets.  And you? 

Next: the Orwellian Affordable Care Act.  It isn't.  Need I say more? 

(By the way, you cock-biting cum-burping guttersluts--I am a part time English professor at a small university, and my family can't afford your so-called "cheapest" plan.)

Last, but not least...King Putt himself can fuck the fucking fuckety fuck off for deciding to fucking weigh in on the fucking side of the fucking Syrian rebels.  I don't give half a flying fuck at a rolling fucking donut that the Syrian government used chemical weapons.  Fucking good on them for that. 

Because the rebels that King Putt has decided to aid?  Have just pledged their allegiance to al-Qaeda. 

That makes the camel-humping knob gobbling mouth-breathing sand louse a fucking traitor.  That makes him even worse than I'd previously thought him. 

And, in honor of the religion to which he apparently ascribes...

Something's wrong.

Via a Blaze news story:

Next time you buy a house?

Pay cash.  In full.  You never know who might end up owning your home, otherwise.

Best yet?  You cannot shake off debt to a government agency by filing bankruptcy. 

Big surprise, there...

I ran across an article this morning, going on about how the economy is strengthening...for everyone except the 18-24 age demographic. 

Somehow, I cannot bring myself to be surprised that young people aren't finding jobs.  They're showing up in tatty jeans or shorts, profane or just stained tee shirts, and flip flops, and expecting to be ushered straight into a corner office with a six figure income.  It's what they're entitled to, after sitting through all that school that promised them exactly that if they just followed the rules. 

They're going to need a few years, and the interference of a trusted older adult before these arrested development children figure out how the world works.  And, in that time, they're going to have to settle for flipping burgers and delivering pizza while they live with Mom and Dad.  They'll have to, to be able to begin repaying the student debt that they've collected, and which they cannot file bankruptcy on to make go away.

They're also going to find out how badly their grades were inflated when they find out that no one wants to hire them because they can't follow directions, either spoken or written, or write coherently, or figure out how much something's gonna cost when given the costs of the raw material, an estimate of how long a project's gonna take, and what labor costs per hour.  

And it's even worse for those who have just barely graduated high school.  Those who may or may not be functionally literate, numerate, or capable of doing more than pushing a broom because of how badly their education was fucked up by a segment of society that values social justice more than practical concerns.

Honestly?  If I'm going to hire someone younger than I am, I'd be looking to hire someone who's served a term in the military.  They know what the world is like, and they're capable of doing whatever job they're hired for...unlike most of the rest of the under-30 crowd.

It's multigenerational!

We just went to Wal-Mart for a few things.  We had the pixie along, and she was a very pleasant shopper.  Everything went fine...until we got to the check out line. 

There was one family taking up two lines.  One family of about four generations.  Great grandma was in one of the fast lanes, had greasy, stringy, thin gray hair, probably in her early sixties, and was probably right around five or six hundred pounds.  She was using a moto-cart, and a SNAP card.  Grandma had slightly thicker, cleaner hair, dyed orange, probably in her late thirties or early forties, and around five or six hundred pounds.  She was also in a moto-cart.  She had a load of groceries, and a WIC voucher that her daughter laid on the baby food.  And a SNAP card and welfare debit card.  Mom was at least on her own two feet, but probably topped the scales at around four hundred.  She had about $1500 worth of tattoos (and so did Grandma and, horribly enough, Great grandma), and a smart phone tucked under a straining cami top strap.  No bra.    Mom had two babies--about two, and about six months.  Her younger sister was there, looked to be about twelve, and about 150 or so pounds, and a vacant, slack jawed look.

Four generations of dependence on the taxpayer.  The only male in the bunch was the six month old. 

I was disgusted enough, standing in line behind them.  Then, they left, and I got up to the pin number key pad--greasy--and smelled the nasty.  Seriously, it smelled like something dead. 

And this is what we, the taxpayer, is supposed to feel sorry for. 

I'm sorry.

I don't.

The only ones I feel sorry for are the babies.  They need to be removed from their biological mother and placed into a middle-class family that will teach them a work ethic, and to not be parasites upon the productive members of society.  And, given how I feel about child "welfare" programs, that ought to tell you something.

What we stood behind in line at Wal-Mart is a cumulation of stupid choices that would have been punished by reality before Johnson decided that poverty was something other than the results of stupid choices made by the people who shouldn't have offspring survive to keep the stupid choices going for another generation.

Had I control of the social programs like welfare, food stamps, and social engineering taxes, I would do a few things:

1. Nothing but beans, rice, canned veggies and fruit, hamburger meat, bread, chicken leg quarters qualify for SNAP.  If they want soda and junk, they can pay cash.

2. Only the first child counts for assistance for unwed mothers and deadbeat couples who refuse to work.  Two is a blatant grab for more money.  (It'd be a little different if the parents were working, and spending all their money on child care--which is entirely possible.)  I would also require any single, never-wed mother to have a birth control implant placed as soon as she'd given birth, if she wasn't planning to breast feed.

3. No taxes on cigarettes or alcohol.  Let 'em die.

4. No Medicaid for anyone who smokes.  If they smoke, they can buy their own insurance, or die. 

I'd be willing to bet that our national deficit would shrink by about half within about ten years or so.  And so would the group that perpetually makes bad choices, sucks the life out of the taxpayer, and votes Democrat.

Criminal masterminds...

33.  Never, ever try breaking into the home of a little old lady and her WWII veteran husband while they're home.  Especially not while she's on the phone with 911, has a Rottweiler barking its head off, and is telling the dispatcher that she has a gun and will shoot your stupid ass.  If you continue in your attempt to break in, she will shoot at your stupid ass, and luck will be all that's between you and cranial ventilation.

Hmm...

You know, when faced with "leadership" like John Boner or Lindsey Graham, neither of whom have sufficient reading comprehension to understand a short, simple document, I have absolutely no objection to a hostile, internal takeover of the Republican party by Constitutional patriots like Rand Paul or Ted Cruz. 

On the contrary: I welcome it.

Oh...lovely.

It's not compassion pushing the euthanasia laws in Europe.  It's the fact that those who are terminally ill suck down a massive dollar amount of the socialist medical services, leaving less money available for those who can be helped.  It's a cold-blooded assessment of return on investment; there is no compassion anywhere but perhaps in the doctors who can't stand to see their patients suffer, and in the family members whose loved ones are suffering with no relief in sight but death.

Now, Belgium had decided that the practice of euthanasia can and should be extended to children.  Individuals who are incapable of informed consent to smoke, drink, and have sex.  Why is it that the government believes that giving informed consent to taking poison is any different?

Is this what we want for our country?  If we follow in Europe's footsteps with permitting the termination of the terminally ill, how long will it be before it's determined that nobody who is terminally ill can knowingly consent because of the medications they're on, and that all terminally ill individuals, whether it's a 90 year old or a 9 month old, must be terminated? 

And how long will it be before people are wrongfully diagnosed as terminal, and terminated when they've got years of high-quality life left?

Case in point: when my husband worked as a loan shark payday lender, he had a regular customer for the prepaid visas.  This woman was diagnosed as having less than a year to live with lung cancer (I think).  We saw her, recently, at Sam's Club.  It's been more than five years since that diagnosis.  And, from what I know of her, she's lived--really lived--every day of that extra time.

Euthanasia laws bother me, less because I have a problem with people choosing to end their own lives, and more because of the rationale behind them.  Especially when there's a distinct possibility that the person who will be euthanized either can't choose it for themselves, or are ordered to die to save money in a system of socialized medicine. 

Awful little brat.

I woke up this morning, just before seven, because my pixie had started squalling.  I got up...only to find that her brother had slammed her door open, waking her up.  Again. 

I got her back down, and gave him a choice of going back to bed, or getting spanked.  Guess which he chose? 

Apparently, he managed to fall back asleep.  Things are...quiet...this morning. 

But I'm still so mad at him that I could just scream.

Still not a feminist.

I'm knitting my daughter a dress.  The first one I attempted didn't turn out so well--first, the straps were too long, so I took them up.  And then they stretched out. 

So this one is going to have a different neckline. 

(I'll post pics of the dress when it's done, if anyone is curious.)

About twelve years ago, when I was halfway through my BA degree, one of the professors in my department came out of her office, and found me sitting on the bench in the office, waiting for my appointment with my advisor.  Knitting. 

And she lambasted me for participating in patriarchal oppression by doing a traditionally feminine craft in public.  Loudly.  In the middle of the crowded department office between classes, forcing everyone to be an audience. 

The more fool she: traditionally, knitting was a man's craft.  Shepherds tended to do it while guarding the sheep.  Men knitted in the evening, while women finished the household chores, or sat mending clothing by the hearth.  Most of the time, it wasn't the women knitting.  They did just about everything else, but not that. 

No, I didn't make her aware of this.  I was caught too flat-footed by her yelling at me for no discernible reason, and she was gone by the time I managed to gather my scattered wits. 

I love cooking.  Meals, specifically.  I also like making cookies, but there's nothing quite so satisfying as planning and creating a meal for those you love, and watching them enjoy the food, knowing that because of something you did, they're no longer hungry.

I do not limit this to my own family.  I am constitutionally incapable of having a friend come over hungry, and not feeding them if they don't have plans. 

That professor, now my colleague, makes a huge deal that she isn't the cook in her marriage--that she sets water on fire.  She acts like it's a huge accomplishment that she refuses to take care of her husband (no children--by the time she agreed to marry the poor guy, after a ten year engagement, she was too old to have them, despite desperately wanting one). 

I cannot fathom how a radical feminist's mind works.  If, indeed, it does.

Wow.

When ex-KGB commander Vladimir Putin is saying that the current administration is doing bad things with the phone records, and invading citizens' privacy a bit too much...you know there's a real problem. 

Ah...children.

The pixie has been in her high chair with her lunch for more than an hour, now.  Refusing to eat what I put in front of her, begging for something, anything, else. 

Just now, she tried a different tactic.  She wants out of her high chair (which she's not getting until I think she's eaten enough).  She knows Mommy won't let her down.  She knows Daddy won't, either.

Recently, she's begun watching the new Mickey Mouse Clubhouse--a cartoon where the Disney characters go on stupid little adventures, and they have a "helper" that they call, that has four tools to help them--things like a screwdriver or other tool, pillows, or other odd collections of things.  Things that are always exactly what they need to do what they want done.  Its name is Toodles.  They call out "Oh, Toodles!" and here it comes to give them a hand.

So, just now, the pixie calls out, "Mama, I right here."

I called back (I'm in the living room, since she won't eat when I'm in there with her), "I know, and you're not getting up until you eat enough."

The next thing I hear?  "Oh, Toodles!"

She's gone through this routine twice, now.

Poor idiot.

I admire Edward Snowdon's courage, but not his intelligence, in shining a spotlight on what the government is doing in ass-plowing the fourth amendment.  He's going to wind up dead.  Whether it's by assassination when they can't haul him back through extradition, or murdered by an inmate (who then immediately gets turned loose as a reward) will depend on which country he manages to flee to. 

I honestly can't see a way for him to survive, since he came out publicly, rather than handing over the information anonymously.  Not with the regime administration tyrants government we currently have in power.

A treat for me.

I recently ordered something I liked from Amazon.  It's something I don't worry about being unsuitable for the kids--it's anime, and not one aimed at older teens and adults.  Honestly, it's better than pretty much anything aimed at kids on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, or Disney. 

So, what is it?  Naruto. 

And my pixie just told me, at two and a half, that she thinks the title character is cute. 

I hate early mornings.

My imp tried getting up before six thirty.  He's back in bed.

I'm not, because I can tell that I wouldn't be getting back to sleep until they wake up anyway.  And that turns irritated anyway mama into mama bear with a sore head.  I'll try to grab a nap, later.

I wish he'd stayed asleep.  I didn't get to sleep myself until around one this morning.

Family can be awesome.

On a whim, I invited my older sister over for dinner.  She showed up right about the time I was serving it, and we had an absolute blast.

Although...she gave a bit TMI about her current relationship, and the...physical side of it.  So, I retaliated.

Mind you, she's ten years older than me.  She remembers me best from when I was the pixie's age up to about the imp's age, or maybe a bit older.  We're a lot alike, but she still sees the very small girl that used to follow her around. 

I had her blushing, hiding her face, and screeching for brain bleach, and it didn't even take more than a couple of inuendoes.

Though, it may be a while before she can look at Odysseus without blushing.

Public prayer is not unconstitutional.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." --Amendment I, U.S. Constitution. 

Fuck insensitivity to atheists--the insensitivity is from the atheists toward pretty much every believer, in this case.  If the school board chooses to begin a meeting with an invocation, how is that unconstitutional?  It's more unconstitutional to prohibit the invocation.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation* is just another bully, successfully using the threat of government action to force people to do what they want.

Maybe they need to go fuck themselves, and leave Christian school boys alone.  

*I refuse to give bullies the attention they crave by linking them.

Ramdom ramblings

I've not been sleeping well, lately.  I can't get my brain to shut off.  I can go to bed sleepy and ready to pass out, but as soon as I get comfortable...my brain wakes right up.  And what sleep I get it almost too deep, and plagued with nightmares.  And sometime this morning early, I twisted my back.  Bad.  I'm trying very hard not to take it out on the kids, but I'm getting so sick of kids' programming while I try to keep them quiet until Odysseus wakes up in the mornings after he works...

I've been getting the imp up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, trying to get him started on night time training.  It's not working well, yet.  I may have to get him up between nine thirty and ten to keep the pull-up dry a little longer.  He's awful cute when he's that sleepy, though.  Everything's funny, and he's got this odd tendency to crawl into my lap where I sit on the floor, and curl up after he gets his pants back up.  Then he snuggles for a couple of minutes and tells me how much he loves me. 

Usually, during the day, he's too busy running around like a crazy thing to do that.  He's too hyper* to be very affectionate.

The pixie has three of her last four teeth at least partially emerged.  Two of them still have a flap of gums across the top, but one's all the way out.  The last one is still giving her some trouble.  I'm looking forward to the end of it--and hopefully the end of her ear problems.  Four nights out of five, she needs Benedryl because her gums are swollen enough that they don't let her ears drain, and she can't go to sleep because it hurts. 

Cricket, the big black and white cat, has demonstrated an annoying preference for the dog's food over the cat food.  I know a dog will eat cat food any time it has the chance, but I've never been around a cat that would prefer to eat the dog's food.

Nor have I ever had a cat that's so stranger shy.  She goes poof whenever someone she doesn't know is here, doesn't come out until at least an hour after they leave, and is easily startled for a couple days afterwards. 

Shadow gets out of the way, but it just doesn't bother her nearly as much as it does Cricket.

The pup has been happy for a few days, now--she's spent all of her time outside, which she much prefers.  I'd agree with the neighbor that we need to get our yard fixed so that she can't get out, but...she digs.  A lot.  She doesn't dig to try to get under the fence, she just digs.  And then sleeps in the holes.  It's bad enough in her pen.  I don't want her doing that in the whole yard.

With the lack of sleep, and the stress over the whole kitchen remodel, I've gotten maybe another 2,000 words written, total.  I finished one story, and another is in process.  So, writing is not going well in general. 

Sales...yeah, sales are also falling off.  I've sold one copy of The Godshead and five of The Last Pendragon this past week.  And every time I mention one of my books that've already been published, I feel like I'm spamming y'all, but I still get a sale or two off of every mention. 

*Hyper as in typical little boy, not hyper as in medical condition.